When I Can't Go On
by Brittana4rever
Summary: Santana and Brittany swore to stay together forever and always. But what happens when tragedy strikes and the world comes crashing down around them?   Some Brittana and mentions of Klaine.


Quinn Fabray threw her backpack down and ran. Alarms were blaring in her head, their noise drowning out Brittany's voice as she reached out toward Quinn. _Danger! Danger! Danger!_ Tripping and stumbling in her three-inch heels, Quinn flung open the door as she reached the end of the hallway and ran helter-skelter out into the icy February sleet. She heard voices behind her, calling her back, but she didn't care. The heel of her shoe caught in the ice blanketing the stairs, and she went, but she didnt stretch out her hands to catch herself. Quinn landed hard, bare knees scraping acorss the ice. Her bottom teeth pierced her lip, drawing blood. Her mouth tasted metallic. Sobbing, Quinn pushed herself up to her knees, then stood slowly, brushing her hands against her bloody knees, which only served to smear the icy dirt more. Her lip throbbed and her knees burned, but all she thought about, all she heard, were the sirens in her head. They grew louder, their noises blending, changing, until they all screamed one word. _**Lucy. Lucy. Lucy.**_

They took her back to the years before she was Quinn. To all the years where she had looked into the mirror and seen everything she _wasn't. _Wasn't pretty, wasn't popular, wasn't athletic, wasn't smart. As Quinn, after a diet of salads and coke zero, after an hour under the plastic surgeons knife, after a dye job and a name change and contacts, she was everything. Perfect. Only, she _wasn't_ truly Quinn. And now everyone knew it.

She started running again, but she knew she couldn't outrun the her identity, outrun the truth. Slipping, sliding, and stumbling, Quinn barrelled across the frozen football field, under the bleachers and out onto the street. She didn't look to see if a car was coming. Let it hit her. She was no one. They probably wouldn't know which name to put on her obituary. Quinn ran, breathing ragged, heart thumping an erratic, wild beat in her ears. She cleared one block, two, three. She knew where she was heading. Lima Center Road Bridge, where she'd loved to come as a little girl to watch for the dolphins that occasionally jumped and played in the clear water. Two more blocks and she'd be there. Two more block. Three more streets. One more corner.

As she neared the bridge, she suddenly had a vivid flashback of her mother singing her an improvised lullaby before bedtime. _Hush, little Quinnie. Don't you cry. Every little things, gonna be alright._ Her mother had crooned, stroking Quinn's silky hair. Little five-year-old Quinn, clean and polished and moisturized after a day of playing in the muddy front yard, sobbing at the forbidden chance to catch fireflies outside with Santanna, had dutifully dried her tears with a pudgy toddler fist and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Her mother had gently tugged her hand away, mild dissaproval etched on her botox-enhanced features. _Now, Quinnie. We don't do that, remember? Do I have to put on that special nailpolish again?_ The nailpolish had tasted bad. Little Quinn shook her head and buried her face in her stuffed dog.

Quinn shook herself. No. She was nobody's pet anymore. She wouldn't be groomed or plucked or pushed into a mold two sizes too small. _Now Quinnie, who's my pretty little girl?_ Quinn ran faster. She was close now, one more street, one more street. Quinn's legs, strong from her everyday Cheerios routines, carried her down the final street, and then she saw the bridge. It was a majestic sillohuette against the overcast sky, and Quinn stopped, breathing hard, sucking in deep breaths of the crisp, clean air. This was Lima. This was her town, her prison. It taunted her with it's beauty. She'd run so fast and so hard to come here, but now that she stood on the brink, she wanted to slow down time, to take baby steps toward the inevitable decision she was going to have to make sooner or later.

Quinn began to walk. Her heels left tiny indentations in the melting ice. _I was here._ Quinn thought as she stepped out onto the bridge. _Me. Lucy Q. Fabray, otherwise known as Quinn. I walked here._ She leaned against the bridge's guardrail, peering out into the deep blue water. There were no dolphins swimming today. Quinn drew a deep, shuddering breath and hoisted one leg over the railing, then the other. She sat balanced precariously on the edge, her feet in their precious shoes tapping lightly against the edge of the bridge. Quinn kicked angrily, sending $800 shoe spiraling down. She waited, but she didn't hear it splash into the water below. She kicked off the other shoe.

Staring down at her bare feet and unpainted nails, Quinn felt more like herself. Not Lucy, not Quinn. Not a name. Just herself. She thought of her mother and her father, of Santanna and Brittany, of the Fabray's tudor mansion and the posters of Lucy hanging in the hallways. She thought of Rachel and Finn and Puck and everyone else, and then she looked back at her bare feet, and thought of herself. Quinn straightened her shoulders and crossed herself. She'd made her decision.


End file.
